Tax Increase Quotes

“If you don't get spending under control, eventually you're going to have a big tax increase.”

— Pat Toomey

“Many Republicans have what I call a 'tax-cut syndrome' where they have never seen a tax cut they didn't really like and didn't see a tax increase they didn't hate and do everything they could to block.”

— Peter George Peterson

“I will never support any tax increase on middle-income earners, ever ... If you're not going to eliminate loopholes and exemptions, then I wouldn't support lowering rates.”

— Adam Hasner

“If you increase the sales tax ... everybody would be taxed.”

— Robert Strauss

“Obama and the Democrats' preposterous argument is that we are just one more big tax increase away from solving our economic problems. The inescapable conclusion, however, is that the primary driver of the short-term deficit is not tax cuts but the lack of any meaningful economic growth over the last half decade.”

— Bob Beauprez

“The move to tax Internet sales, clothed as a 'fairness' issue, is the typical 'wolf-in-sheep's-clothing' ploy so often used by governments unwilling to cut expenditures to match revenues. It matters not whether its proponents have a 'D' or an 'R' after their name. It is a tax increase in either case.”

— Bob Barr

“I will veto any tax increase.”

— Susana Martinez

“I've made a commitment that any tax increase, I'm going to veto. It's the worst thing we could do. We have an amount of money to spend. That's it.”

— Brian Sandoval

“Now this is a way to approach our healthcare problems: increase the number of tax collectors and decrease the number of doctors - brilliant!”

— Charles Krauthammer

“Our estimates suggest that a tax increase of 1 percent of GDP reduces output over the next three years by nearly 3 percent. The effect is highly significant.”

— Christina Romer

“In liberal logic, if life is unfair then the answer is to turn more tax money over to politicians, to spend in ways that will increase their chances of getting reelected.”

— Thomas Sowell

“If you're opposed to the budget I submitted to the General Assembly, you're for a tax increase.”

— Matt Blunt

“A tax cut to compensate for a tax increase is not a cut - it's a con.”

— Tony Abbott

“My premise is not to tax to destroy the wealth of the wealthy; it's to increase the wealth of the bottom and the middle class.”

— Thomas Piketty

“In the middle of a recession no tax increase is justified because it kills jobs, and any tax increase is a job-killing measure and should be defeated.”

— Newt Gingrich

“Democrats are not about to nominate anyone who backs the tax cut, and Americans are not going to elect anyone who favors a tax increase.”

— Dick Morris

“Because tax cuts create an incentive to increase output, employment, and production, they also help balance the budget by reducing means-tested government expenditures. A faster-growing economy means lower unemployment and higher incomes, resulting in reduced unemployment benefits and other social welfare programs.”

— Arthur Laffer

“In 2010 the U.S. will have a payroll tax rate increase, an estate tax increase, and income tax increases. There's also a tax increase coming in 2010 on carried interest. This rate will rise from its current level of 15 percent to 35 percent, and then it will rise again in 2011.”

— Arthur Laffer

“What you do by having an income tax rate reduction across the board, you really provide great incentives for people to work, produce, and increase output. So I would support a carbon tax in replacement for a progressive income tax.”

— Arthur Laffer

“I can make a firm pledge, under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”

— Barack Obama

“But let me perfectly clear, because I know you'll hear the same old claims that rolling back these tax breaks means a massive tax increase on the American people: if your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime.”

— Barack Obama

“During the campaign for re-election, Barack Obama at least made vague references to a willingness to accept $3 trillion of reduced spending in exchange for a $1 trillion dollar tax increase.”

— Bob Beauprez

“The Clinton tax increase - which was an increase in taxes primarily on upper-income people - not only made the tax code more nearly progressive, it preceded one of the most productive economic periods in American life.”

— Barney Frank

“Tea Partiers hate government more than they hate the national debt. They refuse to reduce that debt with tax increases, even with tax increases on the wealthy, because a tax increase doesn't reduce the size of government.”

— Robert Reich

“[Obama] was highly praised, including by his supporters, for his statesmanlike attitude during the lame-duck session, bipartisanship, and getting legislation through. What did he get through? The main achievement was a huge tax cut for the extremely wealthy ... Meanwhile, at the same time, he initiated a tax increase on federal workers. Of course, no one called it a tax increase. That doesn't sound good. They called it a pay freeze. But a pay freeze on public-sector workers is exactly the same thing as a tax increase. So we punish public-sector workers and reward the executives of Goldman Sachs, who just announced a $17.5 billion compensation package for themselves.”

— Noam Chomsky

“I'm a conservative. I believe in the idea of freedom and liberty, but more importantly, look at my voting background. I voted against bailing out Wall Street. I voted against, never voted for, a tax increase.”

— Kevin McCarthy

“If you increase taxes now on - at any level, it's going to make it harder to create jobs And we've lost 2 1/2 million jobs since the stimulus package passed. We're at 9.6 unemployment. So I don't think we tax too little, I think we spend too much.”

— Lindsey Graham

“I traveled the state of Florida for two years campaigning. I have never met a job creator who told me that they were waiting for the next tax increase before they started growing their business. I've never met a single job creator who's ever said to me I can't wait until government raises taxes again so I can go out and create a job.”

— Marco Rubio

“I have never voted for a tax increase.”

— Marco Rubio

“Not continuing a tax cut is not technically a tax increase.”

— Grover Norquist

“There are several reasons to oppose tax increases. First, every dollar of tax increase is a dollar you didn't get in spending restraint. Two, if you walk into the Democrats' Andrews-Air-Force-Base, Lucy-with-the-Football trick for the third time in a row - they don't have have a saying for being fooled three times!”

— Grover Norquist

“If you have to change the law to get more money, that's a tax increase, and Americans for Tax Reform supports all efforts of tax reform, getting rid of deductions or credits, or something that's misclassified, as long as you at the same time reduce rates so that it's not a hidden tax.”

— Grover Norquist

“The last man to try to run for president advocating a tax increase was Walter Mondale. He lost 49 states in 1984, and the "I'll raise your taxes" reputation haunted him all the way to Minnesota last year, where he lost his 50th state in the Senate election.”

— Dick Morris

“When I was ambushed by global warming advocates recently-no, they haven't given up-they asked me the same questions they always ask: "What if you're wrong?" and "If you're wrong will you apologize to future generations?" I always answer, "What if you're wrong? Will you apologize to my twenty kids and grandkids for the largest tax increase in American history?" They usually don't have anything to say after that.”

— James Inhofe

“We also need to encourage Americans to become more fiscally responsible themselves. We can do this by redesigning our tax system into an expenditure tax with a single flat rate ... We have to substantially reduce the size and scope of the federal government, fundamentally increase the role of the states in choosing their own practices, and bring decision-making closer to the people, not to unelected administrators. These steps are crucial to getting our nation on a path of fiscal, political and constitutional responsibility.”

— Edwin Feulner

“We're talking about should we increase taxes? Why not put a tax on carbon emissions. It would raise a lot of money, it would reduce the environmental damages in the future, it would solve so many problems, and it would be a much more constructive thing to do than to think about raising the income tax.”

— Robert F. Engle

“The payroll tax increase was destructive financially, it took what was a close call and made it a bad call,”

— Mike McGavick

“One such troubling provision is a tax increase to pay for the $635 billion included in the budget for health care 'reserve funds.' Health care reform is desperately needed in America, but I'm concerned that $635 billion will be a down payment on socialized medicine, causing the impersonal rationing of health care and destroying the doctor-patient relationship.”

— Paul Broun

“Economists are almost unanimous in conceding that the land tax has no adverse side effects ... Landowners ought to look at both sides of the coin. Applying a tax to land values also means removing other taxes. This would so improve the efficiency of a city that land values would go up more than the increase in taxes on land.”

— William Vickrey

“Why does a slight tax increase cost you two hundred dollars and a substantial tax cut save you thirty cents?”

— Peg Bracken

“We have to have structural entitlement reform, major spending cuts and not tax increase-retardants on economic growth to reverse our current course toward national bankruptcy, but Obama steadfastly remains on the wrong side of all these solutions.”

— David Limbaugh

“Only dramatic cuts in the federal deficit, a rollback of regulations that cripple small and community banks, a cancellation of future tax increase plans, a big reduction in federal spending, repeal of Obamacare, freeing manufacturing from the prospect of carbon taxation and unleashing out domestic energy potential can solve our problems. But Obama is not about to undo his legacy of disaster for the American people.”

— Dick Morris

“The president [Barak Obama] had been asked some questions by George Stephanopoulos on a news show about whether it was a tax. And he had given an answer that you might read as him saying it wasn't a tax. I think what he said was, "It isn't a tax increase on all Americans."”

— Donald Verrilli Jr.

“It was absolutely critical to renew the Bush tax cuts. Letting them expire would result in a massive tax increase that would retard economic growth.”

— Mitt Romney

“Here's what I can tell the American people: 95 percent of you will get a tax cut. And if you make less than $250,000, less than a quarter-million dollars a year, then you will not see one dime's worth of tax increase.”

— Barack Obama

“If the economy of today were operating close to capacity levels with little unemployment, or if a sudden change in our military requirements should cause a scramble for men and resources, then I would oppose tax reductions as irresponsible and inflationary; and I would not hesitate to recommend a tax increase if that were necessary.”

— John F. Kennedy

“I believe that there should be a very much heavier progressive tax on very large incomes, a tax which should increase in a very marked fashion for the gigantic incomes.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

“We have no plans to increase tax at all.”

— Tony Blair

“We gotta control inflation, quit spending our money on everything. But this years tax increase, why it's the biggest in history.”

— Hank Williams, Jr.

“Assuming that a tax increase is necessary, it is clearly preferable to impose the additional cost on land by increasing the land tax, rather than to increase the wage tax - the two alternatives open to the City (of Pittsburgh). It is the use and occupancy of property that creates the need for the municipal services that appear as the largest item in the budget - fire and police protection, waste removal, and public works. The average increase in tax bills of city residents will be about twice as great with wage tax increase than with a land tax increase.”

— Herbert Simon